


The Compassion of the Wicked

by Lise



Category: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: Dubious Consent, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Fucked Up, Incest, Inspired by Fanart, Multi, Sexual Content, Sibling Incest, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, Threesome, Threesome - F/F/M, copious quotations, how many different languages can I fit in one fic, it's all very...non explicit though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 18:07:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20344426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/pseuds/Lise
Summary: Lymond tangles with the Reid Maletts.





	The Compassion of the Wicked

**Author's Note:**

> This fic exists almost entirely because of [Liz's](http://linovadraws.tumblr.com) fantastic art [here](https://linovadraws.tumblr.com/post/171776480441/for-of-all-men-my-god-could-love-you-and-i), and then subsequent enabling by same. So thank you for that, from the bottom of my heart, because I probably would never have dared to write this if it weren't for knowing that at least one other person was amped about the idea. 
> 
> Apparently what I bring to this fandom is, well. This. 
> 
> Notes about translations and sources are at the end. Thank you to my [beta](http://ameliarating.tumblr.com), who read this whole series because I told her she should, and also a _big_ thank you to [bereft-of-frogs](http://bereft-of-frogs.tumblr.com) and [theanishimori](https://theanishimori.tumblr.com/) for research assistance. And if you like this and want to talk to me about Lymond Chronicles, please do - find me [on Tumblr](http://veliseraptor.tumblr.com) running a mess of a blog.

_A righteous man knows the needs of his beast,  
But the compassion of the wicked is cruelty. –_ Proverbs 12:10

The room that Lymond had anticipated would be empty, was not. His guest sat arranged artfully on the chair, and turned her golden head to look at him with her angel’s face.

“How very unexpected,” Lymond said. “Fair Lucrezia, _cum forma tum specta castitas..._or have I the wrong one?”

She sighed, as though at words expected but still disappointing. “You would greet me with such cruel words?”

“We both know you can withstand a little cruelty.” Lymond held where he was, in the doorway, expression cold. “Get out.”

She lifted her chin. “No.”

“I am not asking.” He did smile at her then, bright and sharp. “Were you not satisfied at Dunbarton?”

Her eyes snapped, somewhat spoiling the effect of angelic innocence. “And what,” she said, “if I should leave here, disheveled and weeping, and pronounce to your men what you have done?”

“Threats!” Lymond said. “Ah, stronger than any buckler, than any spear more piercing, who hath the gift of beauty. You would break your brother’s heart? Perhaps he, like Verginius, shall vindicate your freedom by _pectus puellae transfigit._”

Joleta stood. “Do not quote Latin at me,” she said. “Do you think you can turn from me so easily? I _marked _you.”

“So did the government of France,” Lymond said. “One might call that experience more memorable.”

That brought Joleta sharply to her feet and propelled her toward him, where he caught the hand with its small sharp knife before it struck.

“Ah,” Lymond said. “You came armed, I see.”

She strained against his hold, trying to bring the knife down. “You would deserve it,” she hissed.

“And what of you deserve, _dame sans per_,” Lymond said. “Shall we consider that?”

She stopped struggling and stared at him with narrowed eyes, demure mask entirely discarded. “And you enjoyed it,” she said. “You cannot say otherwise, _Monsieur _Crawford.”

His expression remained cruel, and he did not release her. “Is such how you seduce all your paramours? With a knife and threats? You are a very persistent huntress, but I, Joleta Mallett, am not your prey.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Would you rather be my brother’s?” she said, vicious. “He would have you, if you asked.”

“Would he, now,” Lymond said. “I notice you do not ask if _I _would have _him._”

“Would you?”

Lymond stilled. His fingers around Joleta’s wrist loosened enough that she could pull free and draw back, still gripping the knife. On her face was written a mixture of triumph and anger. Not turning, Lymond said, “what remarkably apt timing.”

“So it would seem,” Gabriel said, voice grave, “if I have arrived just in time to preserve my sister’s virtue from depredation.”

“I daresay it’s a bit late for that,” Lymond said. Gabriel gave his back a long, measured look and then stepped forward and laid one hand on Lymond’s shoulder.

“Perhaps,” he said delicately, “we might close the door.”

Lymond’s head turned fractionally to the side. “_Highly _unorthodox, Sir Galeas,” he said. “Do you not fear for the sanctity of your soul?”

“Need I?” Gabriel asked gently, and Lymond twitched out from under his hand, turning to face him without putting his back fully to Joleta.

“Who can say? Perhaps I am your test. _Then the deuyll taketh him vp into the holy cytie…_”

“Enough of this,” Joleta said violently.

“I quite agree,” Gabriel said, and Lymond’s pivot had left just enough room to permit his stepping over the threshold and closing the door quietly behind. Two pairs of sky-blue eyes fixed on one another, immobilizing.

“Quite a tableau,” Lymond said, voice light. “It seems you may have fraternal matters to discuss. Need I attend, or may I be excused?”

“Francis,” Gabriel said. “I don’t believe that you answered my sister’s question.”

Joleta’s lip curled, twisting her lovely face. “He hardly needs to,” she said.

“Is this jealousy?” Lymond asked. “_The dedes of the flesshe are manyfeste._ Come, come, there is enough of me to share.”

They turned, almost as one, to look at him. Lymond did not flinch, meeting their gazes with perfect placidity.

“You do test me,” Gabriel said, aggrieved. “You have, since we first met. I have wondered again and again what it would take to bring you to God...to me.”

“God, or you?” Lymond asked. “Does the one necessitate the other, or am I permitted to decline either?”

Gabriel stepped forward and reached out, fingertips brushing Lymond’s cheek. He did not withdraw, at least not immediately, and Gabriel let out a soft breath. “Francis…”

The smile, when it came, was sharp. “O Castitas,” Lymond said, “_Mater et Virgo, extingue carnales concupiscentias! _But enough. For whom this mummer’s show? Do we not know each other better now? For certainly I have known flesh of your flesh, blood of your blood... and she drew mine.”

Joleta’s eyes glittered like blue diamonds. “Graham,” she said, soft but not sweet. He glanced at her, standing with knife still unsheathed, and his hand fell away from Lymond’s face.

“You are your sister’s brother,” Lymond said. “And you wage war with remarkably similar tactics.”

“Do we,” Gabriel said quietly. He moved, then, as though to strike, only it was with a hand curling around the back of the neck; a mouth brought down with force in claim and demand. A refusal of denial, and steel at last unsheathed. It only lasted a moment, but it was a long one.

Lymond did not sway. He might have seemed unmoved, but for the fresh tension in his body, holding him rigid.

“You would make this war,” Gabriel said.

“It already is.”

Joleta took the same step toward Lymond as Gabriel. “If it is war,” she said, “then I will win it.”

“We,” Gabriel said, with an air of gentle correction. Lymond’s eyes moved back and forth between them, too bright, his smile when it came more than slightly fey.

“I see. Share and share alike,” he said. “Shall we dance, we three?”

* * *

It was Gabriel’s hands that pinned Lymond’s wrists at his sides as Joleta used the knife to cut away his clothes. It nicked skin at the base of his throat, drawing blood, and Lymond’s jerk back brought him up against Gabriel’s chest, his head bent down beside Lymond’s.

“How shall we undo you, my dear Francis,” he said in his low and beautiful voice, and turned to press his mouth just below an ear.

Joleta’s light touch changed to a rake of nails that drew blood up to the skin, down to one now exposed collarbone, fair skin gleaming in firelight. A quick intake of breath, caught halfway. Gabriel laughed, quiet and warm.

“You assume I am so handily undone,” Lymond said.

“Not handily,” Joleta said. “But then where would be the pleasure otherwise?” Her clear blue gaze moved from Lymond’s face to past him, up to her brother’s, and a vicious spark lit. “A pleasure I’ve already had,” she said, and there was an edge of gloating in it, of triumph.

“A bit of fraternal rivalry?” Lymond asked, voice light. At his sides, delicate fingers curled in toward the palms, not quite clenched. “I should hate to disrupt such an intimate relationship.”

“You won’t,” Gabriel said, one hand curling over Lymond’s hip. “My sister forgets that it was I who set you in her path in the first place.”

“_Set _me!” Joleta’s voice rang with indignation. “You do not command me.” And she reached as though to prove it, seizing Lymond’s flaxen hair and pulling his mouth down to hers. This time he did answer, kissing her with sudden savagery answered with savagery.

The knife fell from her fingers to the floor, but a moment later she jerked away, her lip bleeding, and slapped Lymond across the face. He turned with it, laughing again.

“First blood to me, _Tullia ferox,_” he said. Her soft mouth twisted.

“But not last,” Gabriel said. His hands tightened on Lymond’s wrists, drawing him back; his body tensed but did not pull away. “You are a rebellious creature. But I still believe you can be brought to heel.”

“You might want to bring your sister, first,” Lymond said, eyes bright. His chest rose and fell just a little too fast.

“I do not heel,” Joleta said, voice sharp as her knife. “My brother is not my master.”

“I suppose not,” Lymond said. “You have your own wicked mind. _Et sembleroit en vous perie courtoisie._ \--_ah._” This last, as Gabriel wrenched his arms back.

“Mind your tongue,” he said, though almost gently. “I will abide your words to me, but my sister has my heart.”

“More of you than that,” Lymond said.

Joleta grasped Lymond’s face, her fingers pressing into skin. “It must be a relief,” Lymond said to her, “to let fall your saintly garments and unleash your truer self.”

She smiled, suddenly, and let him go. “Graham,” she said sweetly, “make him kneel.”

“Yes, Graham,” Lymond said. “Go on, then.”

The smile that touched Sir Graham Reid Mallett’s lips was one of exquisite cruelty. “I might have known you would answer to the physical over the psychological,” he said. “For all your airs, you are a base charlatan, a spangled harlot-”

“And you would have made me the Octavian to your Marcus,” Lymond said. “Quite the triumvirate we might have made.”

“We still might,” Gabriel said. He released Lymond’s wrists, only to grasp his shoulders, pressing his lips to the back of his neck with a terrible sort of tenderness. Joleta trailed her fingers across his cheekbone.

“Down,” she said. “Pray. And beg forgiveness.”

“I do not beg,” Lymond said. Her lips curved in a smile, an echo of her brother’s.

“You will,” she said, “before we are done.”

Gabriel’s hands bore down, pressing Lymond toward the floor. “You ask repentance, my heart, of a man who knows not the word.”

“_For as soone as thou begannest to make thy prayer, it was so diuised, & therfore am I come to shewe the._ So teach me,” Lymond said, smiling, cornflower-blue eyes alight, and let himself be bent.

* * *

Like a sacrifice, Lymond knelt with his head drawn back, throat bared as Joleta shed her clothes, wearing shamelessness as easily as modesty. The fall of her hair the color of wheat tumbled over her shoulders. Her gaze lingered on Lymond alone as though Gabriel was not there, and Lymond laughed.

“Eyes only for me, fair maiden?” he said. “Careful, or your master may grow envious.”

She hissed like a cat and struck like one, fingernails leaving bright welts across his cheek. “My brother should have brought your whip,” she said to Gabriel. “I would have you flogged for insolence.”

She advanced toward him, tracing her fingers over the cross engraved on his skin, and smiled; lifting one delicate foot and sliding it up his bared thigh. That wrung the slightest of shudders from his reluctant body, and a wider smile of victory.

“Joleta,” Gabriel said, voice touched with reproach, and underneath with a quieter satisfaction. “Don’t be cruel.”

“Ah,” Lymond said, “but that is the only language she knows.”

“You ought to worship me,” Joleta said, and there was, perhaps, just a trace of petulance in her voice.

“Why,” Lymond asked. “Because others do? I fear not, Hyrcan tigress, for-” His voice broke off with a sharp, quick intake of breath. Joleta smiled, sharp and yet girlish, the pleasure of a duelist scoring a mark. Gabriel’s fingers combed through hair like flax.

“Go on, my darling,” he purred.

“Am I in need of your permission?” Joleta asked, smile gone again. Her heel pressed hard into flesh before rocking forward, and Lymond’s body briefly arched up, eyelids falling halfway as though to mask the feeling behind. Gabriel’s hand that was not tangled in fair hair caressed tenderly down the line of his throat, and Lymond fell very still.

“You beautiful creature,” he murmured. “And wasted without a hand on your rein.”

“Am I?” Lymond said. Despite the slight quiver of his body, tense as a bowstring, his voice was cool and still light, eyelids half lowered masking the expressive eyes. “I do not feel wasted at all.”

“You would not.” Joleta drew closer, looking up toward her brother. Their lips met, and Gabriel guided Lymond’s head down to the apex of her thighs.

“_Le Chevalier qui fit les cons parler, _is it,” Lymond said, and then was quiet. Gabriel’s hand still clasped the side of his throat; Joleta threw her head back, breaking away from Gabriel with a sound at the back of her throat half-swallowed.

“Quiet,” he said, and her eyes snapped, lashing out with the same hand she’d struck Lymond with before. Gabriel turned his face with the blow and smiled with sharp arrogance and a trace of amusement.

“Do not,” Joleta said, her voice quivering and brittle. She wrapped her fingers around Gabriel’s wrist and pressed down. “I should scream. Do not forget that I could destroy you if I wished-”

“Will you?” Gabriel asked gently. The hand not in Lymond’s hair rose to cup the side of her delicate neck. She bit her lip, then leaned forward and bit his, her body trembling, her breaths sharp and quick, and Lymond on his knees between them, a barrier, or a conduit.

* * *

They laid him out on the bed like a banquet, where Gabriel held him pinioned back to his chest, powerful hands pressing into skin, exploring his body but not bruising, his control still too fine for such brutality. He tucked his face into Lymond’s neck and pressed his lips to tender skin behind his ears, laughing when Lymond tensed.

“Be at ease, sweeting,” he said warmly. “Or at least as much as you can.”

“You woo with such sweet words,” Lymond said, his voice remarkably steady even as he bucked against restraining hands, Joleta’s narrow fingers folded around him, calculating eyes fixed on his face. “_Gad ym Saesnes gyffes, gu, fondew fun, fynd i fyny_. If this is how you think to possess me-” The voice that commanded so fluently broke, then, as Gabriel pressed into him, slow and inevitable. Joleta dug her nails into Lymond’s shoulder as her hand squeezed, a vindictive pleasure written in her eyes.

“But I do,” Gabriel said, his breaths now heavy.

“_We,_” Joleta said.

“_And Phebus loued neuer after Clycye,_” Lymond murmured, and gasped when she dragged her nails down his chest, as Gabriel’s hips snapped upward, as his hands grasped at the blankets and he pressed against Gabriel’s restraining arm. Joleta released him but only to sheathe his body in hers, and the composure of Lymond’s face cracked, just slightly, a fingernail’s width.

“_Good,_” Gabriel said, as if sensing that slight give and seizing hold of it, the thrust of his hips smooth, powerful, in contrast to Joleta’s riding him quickly, roughly, as though racing them both to her finish. Her golden head thrown back in wild abandon, fair skin gleaming with sweat, a wildfire where her brother was smouldering coals, Lymond their tinder catching fire, slowly breaking.

The first cry was greeted with a smile, and teeth set in his shoulder; the mighty shudder with a low hum and a hand splayed across his hip. The eyelids fell, masking what expression could be masked; the parted lips and flushed cheeks gave away more feeling than might have been wished. Joleta’s slender hand wrapped around her brother’s wrist, the two of them moving in rhythm, steady as the beat of a drum.

They fought a crusade for as yet unconquered territory. The ruthless self-command, the unbending will, an affront to two accustomed to domination in all things, and here and now the object of their frustration was at their mercy.

And, at once, a channel through which the Reid-Maletts waged their own war, a more private and intimate one, and Lymond between them the battleground.

After that first sound, there were no more, no matter how roughly Gabriel used him or how hard Joleta clawed at his chest. His body spoke more eloquently, an instrument that answered the plucking of its strings regardless of whose fingers they were.

The tension built, and built, and released.

* * *

Gabriel dressed quickly, his movements tight and efficient. Lazy as a satiated lion, Joleta lounged, still half-dressed, and watched him with a heavy-lidded gaze. Lymond’s eyes remained closed where he was sprawled in dissolute ruin, the cross etched in his shoulder vivid on golden skin.

“Well,” he murmured, “this has been diverting. And educational.”

Joleta ran her fingers lightly along his leg before standing, shaking her hair back. “Brother,” she said sweetly. “Would you help me with my dress?”

“Dress yourself.” Gabriel’s voice was curt, and Joleta’s expression turned petulant.

“How very ungentlemanly of you,” Lymond said. Joleta’s smile was her knife.

“And what do you know of gentility,” she said.

“Would match what you do, I suspect.” Lymond unclosed his eyes. “_Un pincée ou moins._”

“Ignore him,” Gabriel said. “He fences with reeds.”

“I am curious,” Lymond asked, gaze bright and hard as chalcedony. “Who shall claim the better part of the prize, if you are victorious? Would you cuckold your own sister? Or is it she who will be the cuckquean?”

Gabriel’s lip curled and he looked on the point of striking the fine-featured face, its features placid and opaque.

“Pay heed, wildcat,” Lymond said, glancing to Joleta. “This, your beloved Caligula, will not hesitate to strike you down if it serves his ambition.”

“As you did your sister?” Joleta said viciously, but Lymond did not flinch.

“Sir Graham seeks lofty heights,” Lymond said. “Sooner or later, you will be an impediment; a liability. Then-”

“He would have your heart from your chest if I asked,” Joleta said hotly. Gabriel struck him, the casual blow of a man entirely in control.

“Silence, slut,” he said, lazily.

Lymond’s unmoved expression mocked. “You had best leave quietly,” he said. “Unless you want to raise suspicions that might shake the foundations of your righteous image.” He turned his head slightly, toward Joleta. “Or will you still seek to chain me with her _good name_?”

“You think yourself so clever,” Joleta said. “But you are just like any other man.”

Lymond smiled. “I suppose we shall see, won’t we,” he said.

Gabriel turned toward the door. “I am finished here,” he said, straightening his clothes. “Francis...I hope you will see sense.”

“I have,” Lymond said. “Alas, that my sense aligns not with your will.”

“You are a boy,” Gabriel said coldly, “of more learning than intelligence. Joleta.” He left, but she did not immediately follow, lingering.

“It is a question, I think,” Lymond said, “which of you will devour the other first.”

“If it comes to that,” Joleta said icily, “it will be me.”

The door closed behind her, and all was quiet.

At length Lymond laughed, the breathless sound of a man who has faced and surpassed an unexpected trial. “_Quant ert il mais d’osteier recreanz_,” he said, and laid a hand over his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> The reason it takes me so long to write Lymond fic is that I stop myself to do a whole bunch of unnecessary research. But hey, it's fun.
> 
>   * _"...cum forma tum specta castitas"_ \- "with her shape [beauty, appearance] and visible chastity." A quote from Livy's _Ab urbe condita_ I.57, describing Lucretia at her loom when Sextus Tarquinius conceives his lust for her - contrasted immediately with the other famous Lucretia to whom Lymond is referring, that is, the Borgia who was rumored to have poisoned her lovers and supposedly committed incest with her brother Cesare.
>   * "Stronger than any buckler, than any spear more piercing, who hath the gift of beauty." - from a collection of Greek poems falsely attributed to Anacreon, known as the _Anacreontea_, Odes, XXIV. My dates on the availability of this one may be a little slippery, but I'm going with it.
>   * "..._pectus puellae transfigit._" - Meaning 'transfixed the chest of the girl." Another reference from Livy, this time from IV.44-58. Verginius killed his daughter Verginia rather than have her chastity violated. As he does so, he cries: "In this, the only way I can, I vindicate, my child, your freedom."
>   * "_dame sans per_" - obviously just "lady without peer" but borrowed from a 14th century French song.
>   * "Sir Galeas" - The purest of Arthur's knights, of legendary piety.
>   * "Then the deuyll taketh him vp into the holy cytie…" - from Matthew 4:5, the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Translation from The Great Bible of 1539 - incidentally, the first authorized English translation of the Bible.
>   * "The dedes of the flesshe are manyfeste." - Galatians 5:19. The verse goes on to expand what those works are: "sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these."
>   * "_Mater et Virgo, extingue carnales concupiscentias!_" - from everyone's favorite morality play, The Castle of Perseverance. The character Chastity is speaking (Castitas); the preceding lines are "I Chastyte, haue power in þis place / þe, Lechery, to bynd and bete. / Maydyn Marye, well of grace, / Schal qwenche þat fowle hete."
>   * "_Tullia ferox_" - and _one_ more reference from Livy, I.48. Tullia Minor was the last queen of Rome before the fall of the kings, and arranged the overthrow and murder of her father.
>   * "_Et sembleroit en vous perie courtoisie._" - "It seems in you all courtesy is lost," from "La Belle Dame san Mercy" by Alain Chartier, written in 1424.
>   * "_For as soone as thou begannest to make thy prayer, it was so diuised, & therfore am I come to shewe the._" - Daniel 9:23 - quoting the angel Gabriel speaking to Daniel.
>   * "Hyrcan tigress" - referring to the tiger described in a number of bestiaries as being of legendary ferocity. 
>   * "_Le Chevalier qui fit les cons parler_" - The title of a fabliau from the 13th century, "The Knight who made cunts speak." Unfortunately I do not have the full text for this one.
>   * "_Gad ym Saesnes gyffes, gu, fondew fun, fynd i fyny._" - Speaking of filthy poetry - this one is from the Welsh poet Tudur Penyllyn (c. 1420-1485), "Ymddiddan Rhwyng Cymro a Saesnes" (Conversation Between a Welshman and an Englishwoman). This line is a tame one - "Handy Englishwoman, dear one, fat-rumped maid, let me go up." The whole thing is the man begging to have sex with her. 
>   * "And Phebus loued neuer after Clycye" - this one's from Ovid, the story of Leucothoe and Helios. Helios left Clytie for Leucothoe, and in revenge Clytie told Leucothoe's father about the affair. As punishment, Leucothoe was killed, but Helios did not, in fact, respond by immediately falling in love with Clytie. This translation comes from the William Caxton version published in 1480, and I would like to give a shoutout to [bereft-of-frogs](http://bereft-of-frogs.tumblr.com) for some _truly_ heroic work tracking down and scanning the portion of this text that I was looking for.
>   * "cuckquean" - this _is_ a real word! And it means exactly what you think it means. First pops up for sure in 1562, but considering that was a published collection of proverbs I feel comfortable assuming it was in use before then.
>   * "your beloved Caligula" - the emperor Caligula supposedly had an incestuous relationship with his sister Drusilla. He deified her after her death.
>   * "Quant ert il mais d’osteier recreanz" - "When will he tire of making war?" Old French from The Song of Roland, quoting the Saracen King Marsile about Charlemagne, speaking to the traitor Ganelon.


End file.
